Replies

I hope my thoughts here will be considered in the friendly spirit with which they are offered. Thanks much!

Excellent, good advice is always welcome. You're further along than I, and I believe your children are older too...so I still have time. We liked the K12 materials, but the "free" and "accepted by the State of Kalifornia" moniker made my wife and I add a second layer of tinfoil. This state's attitudes towards parents stinks on ice! Bill Bennett was just a major groan (and sigh). My kids are still pre-school and we haven't ruled out K12 yet. I would be interested in knowing how the interaction with the teacher/school unfolds. Will it be more of a blessing or more like the DMV. And what will the CA Teacher's Unions do about K12??? They've been viscious to other forms of homeschooling.

It's neat you are taking the time to consider and research what you'll do while your children are so young! My children range anywhere from starting Kindergarten to halfway through high school, so I've seen it all schoolwise (grin). I think you do have valid concerns...Delaine Eastin (the former CA Superintendent of Education for out-of-staters) in particular was on such an anti-homeschool tear last year it was disturbing. Fortunately the new superintendent, O'Connell, seems to have backed off of her extreme (illegal?) positions and at least right now, the atmosphere is more benign. With all the problems they are having right now in bricks and mortar schools, maybe they realize it's wiser to leave homeschooled children, who by all accounts typically do very well, alone.

I have friends and acquaintances who used K12 via charter last year in two different geographic areas, and their reaction to the teachers was uniformly positive. In some cases the teachers were homeschooling themselves -- homeschool friendly and quite "hands off," there to support or give ideas when needed but not intrusive. If I had not received that kind of feedback I would have gone the R4 private homeschool route. With one child still in private school (he's my biggest challenge of the four educationally, and I think he's better served remaining where he is until he completes elementary school and I simultaneously "get my feet wet" in home education), having K12 paid for (via our tax dollars) was a real blessing for our family. Frankly the charter also makes it easier to withdraw one of our children from a school with a rather nosy, unpleasant principal who wouldn't hesitate to make phone calls asking about our child's whereabouts next year. If the charter isn't a good fit for us, it will be a relatively simple matter to switch to private homeschooling a year from now :).

There are a couple of good email mailing lists for K12 on Yahoo if you are interested in information -- one is for K12 users nationally and the other is CAVA-K12 (for participants in the California Virtual Academy).

As a longtime Bennett admirer I share your sigh -- it was a real bummer. But then I realized that despite my opinion on his lack of wisdom with his money, it really didn't have any bearing on the materials I'd become so enthused about. (I did a couple of the sample lessons such as "Life in a Pond" with my five-year-old, and we had so much fun!) A completely pre-planned curriculum like K12 also fit my time needs as I have a home business -- I've cut back on it but cannot afford to quit completely (grin), and not having to pull together my own materials from various places was the right thing for me at this juncture. That said, there are lots of other good options besides K12, as described here. I'm busy bookmarking these links for future reference! :)

I would be interested in knowing how the interaction with the teacher/school unfolds.

Friends of mine in Alaska, which has a state-run virtual school program, have said that the State's intervention has become more intrusive as more homeschoolers have become dependent on the "freebies" from the State. As I recall, they started with parents being able to use any organized curriculum they chose ... to being able to chose only a "religion-free" curriculum ... to having to use the curriculum designated by the State.

Whether something like this will happen in California remains to be seen, of course, but you can foresee the California authorities having problems with the traditional, American, character-building path of Bill Bennett's guidelines, and demanding "tolerance," "inclusiveness," and "multiculturism."